Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Went hunting, ended up fishing.

Jim is officially nuts about Morels. Dude took the week off to hunt them. Since rivers didn't seem very fishable, I went out 'shrooming' with the Shroom doctor himself. He wanted to head north as the season was getting good according to Jim. We picked a particularly wooded stretch along a stream I frequent:

We decided to hunt mushrooms the first half of the day and let the creek clear up. After 5-6 hours of mushroom hunting we had a total of 8 large Morels, and had found at least that many dried out.We went fishing. The creek was up about 4", it dramatically cleared in the last few hours from 8" to 18". The fast current put fish in more predictable spots. At normal flow, this stream is packed with Smallmouth bass despite being very shallow throughout its length. It does drain fast however.

We both caught fish right off the bat and it continued as we found holes, until Jim started hunting mushrooms again. He got a couple 16"'s. The bass were threatening to break or lines they were fighting so hard.

I had about 8 fish from dink to 14.5" on crankbaits and spinnerbaits.Heading back upstream I started nailing fish like crazy. This 17"er was caught on a spinnerbait on a current seam where two channels came together:

I skipped a tube under one of those big rocks the creek is famous for, got immediately slammed, then slammed again. Picked 8 smallmouth off that rock from 13-16.75". They fought like lions in the current. I was impressed.

I headed back to meet up with Jim, who had found a couple dozen Morels not in the woods, but just off the road we drove in on.

About Me

Documenting my catch and release river fishing adventures. "Smallmouth in Your Soup" Blog originated as a place to store my fishing adventures and reports for posterity's sake. I am available for consultation on river smallmouth bass knowledge.

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